First Days

Tuesday 5/26/09
A very long, 13+ hour, plane ride (coach of course) and we arrived. A little sleep on the plane helped, along with the Ambien. :) We were told how great Ambien was for sleeping on the plane. "take it and sleep for 7 hours and wake up ready to go!". Right. I was expecting something just short of Sodium Pentothal, but all it did was make me sleepy. O well, it did help. We felt pretty good on arrival.
We took an hour taxi ride to the COEX Intercontinental hotel. Very nice hotel. One interesting thing was under the hotel. A giant mall. We're talking a couple city blocks square. A bit of a maze. We had to get a map just to make sure we didn't get lost. Could probably spend about two days walking around to get to all the places.

Wednesday 5/27/09
Got to spend the day exploring the blocks around the hotel. Checked out the subway system, walked through the Hyundai department store where everything's got some big name like Gucci, along with the exorbitant price. Then wandered around the underground mall some more. Wandered what Star Trek would be like to watch at the megaplex of 24 theaters in Korean (yes all in that underground mall).
Then about 3:45 I took a taxi over to the IBM office to meet with some of the team. We went over what we would be doing on Thursday with the Korean DoD. Then I ventured out and took the subway back to the hotel. Even had one transfer! The subway in Seoul is pretty good. Once I figured it out I think I could go anywhere in the city on it. At 1/10 the cost of the taxi it's a good deal.
That night my colleague who brought me out here, Greg Hansen, flew in. Greg, Kim and I walked to a Korean Barbeque place for dinner. A very ethnic experience. No one there spoke English so it took a lot of pointing. :)



Thursday 5/28/09
A whirlwind day. In the morning the teammates from Korea picked Greg and I up at the hotel, we drove about an hour to the local airport, bought tickets for Busan, flew an hour, got off and rented a car, drove an hour to the Korean DoD location. Just a day's commute :) Greg and I put together some slides along the way.
We presented and spoke to some people who will be working on a submarine project, and some researchers from their Defense Development agency. They seem to need some serious help with Systems Engineering. Then, drove back to the airport, bought a ticket on the next plane back, then drove through the horrible traffic to the hotel. Got back about 8pm. A long day.
Kim's posting some of the pictures on her Facebook. Check here to see: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=233064&l=5f5ca7252b&id=1633509060